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I am a bit cynical about this system.. isn't this system naively gathering a temporary consensus that is constantly being changed by the raging media landscape?

I am a bit cynical about this system.. isn't this system naively gathering a temporary consensus that is constantly being changed by the raging media landscape? As soon as there is a media campaign about any topic whatsoever, all these temporary records of consensus will shift and change into completely different directions. How much value does a consensus system like this truly have in finding the truth of a subject matter versus being the equivalent of a slightly fancier strawpoll? I participated in one of these polis discussions and I have to admit that I found it interesting to see the different opinion clusters but at the same time I realize how little it means. Even the tonality or phrasing in a question could change the clusters completely. It's such a hard problem where I somehow tend to think that this system may be impossible to use for healthy politics but might be used as a tool by people with bad intentions to gather data about what the population superficially thinks and then be able to shape your media campaigns into changing people's opinions even more ruthlessly to what you want them to think.

colinmegill 5y ago
Certainly a number of valid concerns here. Like any tool, polis is as good as its context, usage, data inputs. I can offer a specific case study with data, that deals with the discovery of the specific values of a specific population in the context of highly contested issue that has played out over a multi-decade period: A debrief: https://pep.org.nz/2020/12/01/doc-tries-to-restore-e-democracy/ https://pep.org.nz/2020/12/01/doc-tries-to-restore-e-democra... The professional facilitators who work at nation scale in NZ: https://pep.org.nz/ https://pep.org.nz/ The convo: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1908/S00014/scoop-hivemind-protecting-and-restoring-biodiversity.htm https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1908/S00014/scoop-hivemind... The reporting: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1911/S00063/biodiversity-hivemind-report-plenty-of-common-ground.htm https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1911/S00063/biodiversity-h... Raw data: https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/scoop-hivemind.biodiversity https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/scoop-... Direct link to PEP's report to the Ministry of Conservation: https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1911/Biodiversity_HiveMind_Final_Report_Scoop.pdf https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1911/Biodiversity_HiveMin... This is an ideal use case, but it is encouraging to us (and has motivated me over the course of the past decade) that given some combination of factors, there can be real progress, and while yes, it takes a bit of work, we do spend an enormous amount of time and money on worse outcomes than this. So, we can "save one starfish" https://raycenter.wp.drake.edu/2018/06/29/the-starfish-story/ https://raycenter.wp.drake.edu/2018/06/29/the-starfish-story... and put some lights on the horizon of other possible systems, should we inspire some millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions to be spent on other political activities than driving wedges.
aradox66 5y ago
Couldn't you make this argument about democratic deliberation in general? I dont disagree, but the provisionality of opinions is sort of an existential question for democracy.
patcon 5y ago
I really appreciate this critique. And I'm grateful for your cynicism. So long as that cynicism isn't used as a reason not to take tenuous steps toward something different from the status quo. With that said: > How much value does a consensus system like this truly have in finding the truth of a subject matter There's maybe some things to hash out here. If the value of consensus is seen as finding a "truth", then yes, I agree this tool is suspect for that. But if the value of consensus is simply finding enough agreement (on feelings/facts/whatever) to take a step forward together, then maybe it can survive truth shifting under our feet a bit. What matters is whether we maintain commitment to moving in some direction together. And my experience is that Polis creates the stability and trust required for this. Unlike the hyper-division fostered by social media platforms, Polis helps build stable common ground to stand on. It can be used to elevate and incentivize people who do the work of offering bridging (aka shared) sentiments. Other tools don't do this. My mental model is that the availability of these bridges in the opinion space, this stabilizes middle ground on which long-form deliberations can take place. [1] > might be used as a tool by people with bad intentions to gather data about what the population superficially thinks and then be able to shape your media campaign YES. This is a huge concern to not just Polis' creators, but many who work around big data. The capacity for abuse or manipulation is huge. My personal hope is that we can all build tooling like this together, to make us as a population legible to ourselves (symmetric, self-knowledge), rather than data simply making us legible to powerful actors via asymmetric knowledge (which is what's currently happening). This is why imho tools like Polis should be run openly by governments or other trusted partners (journalists). Cryptographic and data trusts should certainly play a role in future iterations. This whole effort needs people thinking about safeguards in the same way that those designing/maintaining a democracy think about safeguards. imho the process of running these processes must [eventually] be comparably sacred to those of running elections and parliaments. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRRvqgYgT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRRvqgYgT0

colinmegill 5y ago

Certainly a number of valid concerns here. Like any tool, polis is as good as its context, usage, data inputs. I can offer a specific case study with data, that deals with the discovery of the specific values of a specific population in the context of highly contested issue that has played out over a multi-decade period: A debrief: https://pep.org.nz/2020/12/01/doc-tries-to-restore-e-democracy/ https://pep.org.nz/2020/12/01/doc-tries-to-restore-e-democra... The professional facilitators who work at nation scale in NZ: https://pep.org.nz/ https://pep.org.nz/ The convo: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1908/S00014/scoop-hivemind-protecting-and-restoring-biodiversity.htm https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1908/S00014/scoop-hivemind... The reporting: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1911/S00063/biodiversity-hivemind-report-plenty-of-common-ground.htm https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1911/S00063/biodiversity-h... Raw data: https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/scoop-hivemind.biodiversity https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/scoop-... Direct link to PEP's report to the Ministry of Conservation: https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1911/Biodiversity_HiveMind_Final_Report_Scoop.pdf https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1911/Biodiversity_HiveMin... This is an ideal use case, but it is encouraging to us (and has motivated me over the course of the past decade) that given some combination of factors, there can be real progress, and while yes, it takes a bit of work, we do spend an enormous amount of time and money on worse outcomes than this. So, we can "save one starfish" https://raycenter.wp.drake.edu/2018/06/29/the-starfish-story/ https://raycenter.wp.drake.edu/2018/06/29/the-starfish-story... and put some lights on the horizon of other possible systems, should we inspire some millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions to be spent on other political activities than driving wedges.

aradox66 5y ago

Couldn't you make this argument about democratic deliberation in general? I dont disagree, but the provisionality of opinions is sort of an existential question for democracy.

patcon 5y ago

I really appreciate this critique. And I'm grateful for your cynicism. So long as that cynicism isn't used as a reason not to take tenuous steps toward something different from the status quo. With that said: > How much value does a consensus system like this truly have in finding the truth of a subject matter There's maybe some things to hash out here. If the value of consensus is seen as finding a "truth", then yes, I agree this tool is suspect for that. But if the value of consensus is simply finding enough agreement (on feelings/facts/whatever) to take a step forward together, then maybe it can survive truth shifting under our feet a bit. What matters is whether we maintain commitment to moving in some direction together. And my experience is that Polis creates the stability and trust required for this. Unlike the hyper-division fostered by social media platforms, Polis helps build stable common ground to stand on. It can be used to elevate and incentivize people who do the work of offering bridging (aka shared) sentiments. Other tools don't do this. My mental model is that the availability of these bridges in the opinion space, this stabilizes middle ground on which long-form deliberations can take place. [1] > might be used as a tool by people with bad intentions to gather data about what the population superficially thinks and then be able to shape your media campaign YES. This is a huge concern to not just Polis' creators, but many who work around big data. The capacity for abuse or manipulation is huge. My personal hope is that we can all build tooling like this together, to make us as a population legible to ourselves (symmetric, self-knowledge), rather than data simply making us legible to powerful actors via asymmetric knowledge (which is what's currently happening). This is why imho tools like Polis should be run openly by governments or other trusted partners (journalists). Cryptographic and data trusts should certainly play a role in future iterations. This whole effort needs people thinking about safeguards in the same way that those designing/maintaining a democracy think about safeguards. imho the process of running these processes must [eventually] be comparably sacred to those of running elections and parliaments. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRRvqgYgT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRRvqgYgT0